NHS England – Victoria
BHC Healthcare recently won a project to completely refurbish the offices of NHS London for the restructuring to NHS England.
Scope
The supply 480 workstations in clusters of 8, 10, 12 etc. with full cable management facilities including data and power, with monitor arms and CPU holders was required. Also, to remove all existing furniture to be sent away for recycling.
The plan required complete design and supply for the soft break out areas on each floor to incorporate the new branding of NHS London. NHS London accommodates three floors at Southside.
BHC won the contract in early March but the requirement was to fulfil over the Easter Bank Holiday. This allowed for 2-3 weeks to manufacture, design, deliver and, project manage including the removal of the existing furniture. BHC used teams of 12 on a shift basis over the Easter Weekend.
“I believe this was our toughest ever project, with time a constant factor, the installation team proved admirable and we managed to finish with time to spare on the Bank holiday Monday.We had to plan every stage down to the last second over the period there was no room for delay. We equated it with the BHC equivalent of the London 2012 Games, without the audience!” Peter Bright, MD BHC Furniture.
How did we manage it?
Installation commenced out of hours over two weekends with a three week lead time from award of mini-tender (standard lead time 4 weeks and 5 weeks for soft furnishings)
480 desks including screens, electrics, cable management and monitor arms, soft furnishings for the Restaurant, meeting, reception and breakout areas, also meeting rooms and storage furniture. And, of course, the removal and recycling of existing furniture in similar quantities to the installation totals!
PLAN
Planning was vital. We had an initial site meeting within 12 hours of the tender award. All site surveys and accesses were clarified, inclusive of vehicle size access, restricted turning & loading/offloading schedules had to co-inside with road closures and a large crane which was being used for window cleaning on an adjacent building.
MANAGE
Managing a project with these demands came down to precise and careful management. The Method Statement and Risk Assessments were carried out and issued prior to the commencement of works. All products were specified, quantities clarified and orders signed off within 48 hours of the initial meeting and the product plans for quantities agreed before manufacturing commenced.
Floor plans were subject to change up to the day of installation, as a result orders were manipulated to reflect requirements 24 hours prior to delivery.
Project meetings were held twice a week prior to commencement of deliveries to co-ordinate all trades on site inclusive of IT, Decorators, Carpet fitters, architects, project management services to ensure all trades could work efficiently and productively within a restricted space and time scale.
Senator/BHC Logistics worked hand in hand with Sales, Customer Services and Installation to ensure the correct & minimal amount of vehicles were allocated as timed arrivals were crucial. All routes were examined and clarified with TFL for access reference road works and closures with contingency routes in place. Arrival times were confirmed on route which allowed the co-ordination of lift access to the building between trades.
INSTALL
We set up deliveries to incorporate an empty second box system to load redundant furniture whilst removing new furniture from the front box. On completion of emptying the front box this was also utilised for additional redundant furniture and removed from site. An additional clear floor area enabled storage of furniture and packaging whilst installation commenced.
This process was repeated up to eight times over both weekends.
Overview – 480 desks removed/recycled and re-installed with ancillary items over 3 floors within 5 days on a three week lead time with minimal snagging.
Installation teams – two teams, 15 persons per team, 12 hour rotation, 24 hour access, weekend 1 – 48 hours to complete recycling & install of 80 desks, weekend 2 – 84 hours to complete recycling and installation of 400 desks.
“BHC has always prided itself with high efficiency and experience where plan, manage and install are part of every project undertaken. NHS London certainly tested every aspect of our mantra.” Peter Bright, MD BHC Furniture.
See all our installation images on Flickr
